Microsoft Office For iPad Gets Printing Capabilities With Support For Apple’s AirPrint

Microsoft says all three applications include various bug fixes and stability improvements. Photo: Microsoft

As part of the first major update to its Office for iPad package, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made up for a glaring omission in the initial release by offering printing capabilities on Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps designed for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) flagship tablet.

According to Microsoft’s official blog post, Office for iPad now has the ability to print documents over-the-air using an AirPrint-compatible printer. AirPrint, which enables printing on a Wi-Fi connection, is a feature available on Apple’s operating systems starting with the OS X Lion and iOS 4.2.1 versions.

“Your top request is here! You can now print Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations to an AirPrint printer,” Microsoft said, in the blog post. “In Word for iPad, you can choose to print a document with or without markup. In Excel, print a selected range, a single worksheet or an entire spreadsheet. Of course, you can select the pages or slides you want to print.”

In addition to printing, the apps also come with other features including SmartGuides for PowerPoint and AutoFit for Excel. While SmartGuides will help users align pictures, shapes and text boxes on a slide, AutoFit will allow users to adjust the width of multiple rows or the height of multiple columns at the same time.

Microsoft said that all three applications also include various bug fixes and stability improvements, and that the company is already working on the next update. All of the updates are currently available and can be downloaded from the App Store for free, but editing and creating documents requires an Office 365 subscription, which starts at $6.99 a month.